Hey! Ididn’t even notice–a “JL original”. Haunting, futuristic, portentious in the spirit of my late great-great uncle Fritz’s masterpiece “Metropolis”. I’d be delighted to be a grip on your next production. What’s it going to be?

“Every idea has been put on the table. Every argument has been made. Everything there is to say about health care has been said, and just about everybody has said it. And so I ask Congress to finish its work…” – President Obama

Newt, President Obama doesn’t deny, and I don’t doubt, that single payer is what he’d like if he were the king of the forest. But it’s not in the bill, and it’s not getting in the bill. Why? Do you know how many cosponsors Bernie Sanders single payer bill has? Zero. He needs 50 to 60 votes. Kucinich’s bill has 85 cosponsors. It needs 218. The votes aren’t there. Not even close.

Friend, just because you covet something doesn’t mean you get what you covet. You may covet Ann Coulter, but your family, friends, Ann’s security detail, the law enforcement system and Ann’s poor judgement stand in the way of you achieving your dream. As Mr. Jagger noted, you can’t always get what you wa-ant. Likewise, a couple hundred congressional votes stand in the way of the President achieving his dream. Because of those insurmountable real life barriers, worrying about Barrack getting single payer passed or you getting Ann Coulter into your heart is an enormous waste of time at best and clinically delusional at worst.

WASHINGTON – A new congressional report released Friday says the United States’ long-term fiscal woes are even worse than predicted by President Barack Obama’s grim budget submission last month.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicts that Obama’s budget plans would generate deficits over the upcoming decade that would total $9.8 trillion. That’s $1.2 trillion more than predicted by the administration.

The deficit picture has turned alarmingly worse since the recession that started at the end of 2007, never dipping below 4 percent of the size of the economy over the next decade. Economists say that deficits of that size are unsustainable and could put upward pressure on interest rates, crowd out private investment in the economy and ultimately erode the nation’s standard of living.

“…the Congressional Budget Office released its initial analysis of the health-care reform plan that Republican Minority Leader John Boehner offered as a substitute to the Democratic legislation. CBO begins with the baseline estimate that 17 percent of legal, non-elderly residents won’t have health-care insurance in 2010. In 2019, after 10 years of the Republican plan, CBO estimates that …17 percent of legal, non-elderly residents won’t have health-care insurance. The Republican alternative will have helped 3 million people secure coverage, which is barely keeping up with population growth. Compare that to the Democratic bill, which covers 36 million more people and cuts the uninsured population to 4 percent.

But maybe, you say, the Republican bill does a really good job cutting costs. According to CBO, the GOP’s alternative will shave $68 billion off the deficit in the next 10 years. The Democrats, CBO says, will slice $104 billion off the deficit.

The Democratic bill, in other words, covers 12 times as many people and saves $36 billion more than the Republican plan.”

Newt, we’ll get a chance to have a discussion about the overall causes of the deficit soon. I’m happy to have that exchange with you.

But this is a post about health reform, and you have very fairly raised the question of the impact health care reform will have on the deficit. The deficit gets much worse under either the status quo health system or the Republican alternative. Yet the supporters of the status quo and/or Republicans promote a “we can’t afford health reform” argument. The CBO analyses expose those claims as myths.